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THE 



GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE 



REVIEWED. 



Misstatements and Misconceptions of the Governor. 

The Immediate Cause of the "War. 

The Concessions and Sacrifices made by the North to pre- 
serve the Union. 

The Issue tendered by and the Real Designs of the Traitors. 

The Conspiracy to break up the Government and strike down 
Constitutional Liberty. 

The Theory upon which our Government was Founded. 

The Social and Political Effect of Slavery. 

The Alternatives Presented. 

The West and New England. 

The President's Proclamation. 

The Scare of Insurrection. 

Arming the Blacks. 

The Proclamation and the Future. 



BY HON. HENHY R. LOW. 



In the Senate, Jan. 28, 1863. 



ALBANY : 

WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
1SG3. 



SENATOR LOW'S SPEECH. 



The Inaugural Message of the Executive recently transmitted 
to this body, will be justly regarded by this Legislature, by the 
State it represents and by the whole country as a State paper of 
significant importance, foreboding vast and important results to 
the country, whether of good or of evil. 

Emanating from a gentleman of the acknowledged ability and 
commanding position of the Executive, occupying as he does the 
Executive Chair of the Empire State of the Nation, and represent- 
ing a powerful political organization for which he speaks as the 
exponent and the leader, this paper carries with it a weight and 
influence that will not be overlooked by the people of either the 
Loyal or Rebellious States, and entitles it with more than ordi- 
nary claims to the candid, serious and searching consideration of 
this body. 

Particularly is this demanded in the present perilous crisis of our 
national affairs, when the hopes and the destinies of the country 
hani^ upon the single thread of unity of action and singleness of 
purpose on the part of the Loyal North in putting down the re- 
bellion, and when, therefore, the great political association which 
the Governor represents, has it in their power to shape the destiny 
of the Republic — to destroy if not to preserve the Union of these 
States. 

Mr. President, while I am not disposed to deny to this Message, 
the meed of merit which it deserves as a production of elaborate 
thought, care and skill — while it must be admitted that the Ex- 
ecutive has forfeited none of his well-earned reputation by the 
plausibility, ingenuity and force with which he has presented his 
views, and while I trust my remarks are actuated by no mere spirit 
of caviling or desire for discussion, yet, sir, I desire to express and 
record my honest convictions as to the errors and the fallacies of 
the reasoning which characterize this paper and the unwarrantable 
nature of the conclusions attained, and with due respect to the 
Executive, to express my humble but sincere and firm belief, that 
in treating the great problem of our national troubles, he has 
mistaken both the causes and the remedy, and has not reflected 
the sentiments or the wishes of the great mass of our loyal citi- 
zens. 



Misstatements and Misconceptions of the Governor. 

When the history of this conflict shall be recorded, and the 
future shall be called upon to pass its verdict, it will hardly be 
credited that the Chief Magistrate of the great State of New York, 
distinguished alike for its intelligence and patriotism, should so 
entirely misapprehend the whole cause and purpose of this revolt, 
or that he should so cruelly wrong the people of the Loyal North, 
both in his exposition of the causes and his dimly developed plan 
for a final settlement and adjustment of our difficulties. 

Why does the Executive, at this late day, when the fate of the 
country is trembling in the balance, when the people are awaiting 
with anxiety to hear from him words of encouragement, exhort- 
ing his followers to action and to duty, why at this time does he 
re-assert the exploded theories of a day gone by, and clamor for 
compromises which have done so much to demoralize the country 
and which are as impracticable as they are unmanly and humili- 
ating ? 

Why does he confound alike patriotism and loyalty with trea- 
chery and falsehood, and cast the blame and responsibility alike 
on both ? 

Why does he ignore the agencies which alone can give us a per- 
manent or enduring peace, and censure the General Government 
by damaging statements calculated to weaken its hands and to 
detract from it the confidence and support of the people ? 

And why does he seem to lend encouragement and countenance 
to that most pernicious and unpatriotic suggestion, that the States 
of the North must be still further disunited, and that some of 
those commonwealths that have poured forth their blood in rivers 
to sustain the Government, must be offered as a sacrifice to con- 
ciliate and appease this, this most causeless and monstrous revolt? 

The Errors which prevail at the North as to the Purposes 

of the War. 

I will not be so uncharitable as to believe that the expression 
of these sentiments in the Message, proceeds from any want of 
patriotic motive or endeavor, or from a disposition to cripple the 
power of the General Government ; but results rather from a 
radical mistake and misapprehension of the purposes of the rebels 
— a mistake which prevails to no inconsiderable extent in the 
councils of all parties and of the Government, and has led to 
serious errors in the management and conduct of the war. 

I shall not, at this time, review those portions of the Message 
which relate to the matter of arrests or the animadversions 
upon the Congress and Senate of the United States, however 
ill-timed or unfortunate those reflections of the Executive may 
appear, and however loud may be the clamor of party leaders 
in regard thereto. I do not regard them as of such vital 



importance as to merit our consideration to the exclusion of those 
great questions upon which now depend the issue of this struggle. 

It is a matter of surprise and regret that our free people of the 
North, who have most at stake in this controversy, and who are 
periling most — and making the most enormous sacrifices for the 
war should less clearly comprehend the true nature of the conflict 
than the men of foreign countries or the Unionists or rebels of 
the extreme South. While too many here regard this as a ques- 
tion of philanthropy — of freedom or slavery to the black man 
— and make it an issue for parties to rally upon and divide — it 
is very differently regarded by those who watch this struggle from 
abroad — and discern the true issue which is really involved — 
and also realize the broad grounds upon which the war is really 
waged, and upon which the Northern people should accept it. 
How is it that the people of all Europe look upon this as a con- 
flict between despotism and liberty, between democracy and 
aristocracy — and range themselves upon either side as their feel- 
ings or judgment dictate? 

How is it that the Tory Aristocracy of England, who have all 
their lives been abolitionists of the most radical type — in concert 
with all the despots of Europe — should all at once conquer their 
prejudices against slavery and become the sympathizers with, and 
abettors of the South and the indignant and unscrupulous enemies 
of the North '? and why do the laboring poor, the operatives of 
Lyons and Lancashire, to whom the war has brought distress and 
starvation, instinctively rally to the support of the North and 
implore us to fight this contest to the bitter end? 

The Immediate Cause of the War. 

We find the answers to these questions in the teachings and 
opinions of the patriots of the South, men who, like Johnson, 
and Hamilton, and Sherwood, have been familiar with the real 
motives of the traitors, and who have known for years their secret 
workings and designs. 

With a view, therefore, to a correct understanding of this ques- 
tion, I shall proceed to the consideration of such features of the 
Message as treat of the origin and motives of the rebellion — its 
objects and purposes — and the agencies which must finally be 
resorted to to overthrow it. 

And were it possible, I should be glad to treat this subject 
without mentioning the negro or the question of slavery, since 
we dislike to contemplate that which seems to have caused our 
calamities and been the fruitful source of our woe. 

But I find it impossible to avoid the discussion of these subjects 
— they stand directly in our path and confront us at the very 
threshold of the argument, and it is neither the part of prudence 
nor discretion to evade or avoid them, or to shut our eyes to that 



which we must sooner or later behold. And while I hold that 
the cause of the North and the Government is essentially the 
cause of the white man, and that his future welfare very greatly 
depends upon its success, I shall proceed to show the relations 
which the institution of domestic, shivery bears to the war and in 
what manner it has incited and brought it on. 

First, It is not /rue that this deplorable war was in its inception 
waged, or has since been prosecuted because the people of the 
Northern States have departed from the ways and admonitions of 
their fathers, or have lost either their intelligence or their patriot- 
ism, or their appreciation of the value of the Union. 

It is not true that the Southern States inaugurated this deadly 
conflict because of any aggressive spirit or unconstitutional 
measures of the people of the North, or of any unfriendly action 
on the part of the Government. 

7/ is not true that they have involved the country in this whole- 
sale bloodshed in vindication of any single one of the principles 
of our free government, in defense of any endangered right of 
their persons or their property, or that they have even a colorable 
justification or excuse for their crime in the opinions or sentiments 
of the clergymen and schoolmasters of the North. 

Nor is it in any sense true or just for the Executive to declare 
that slavery is but the subject of the controversy, and that it is 
not the primal, original and essential cause of the rebellion. 

At the time that this accursed conspiracy broke upon the coun- 
try impartial history will bear- me witness that the people of the 
North had never more highly prized the value of the Union, and 
had never cherished for it a deeper or more fervent regard. With 
our manufactories dotting every hill side and our commerce 
whitening every sea, our nation basking in the noon-tide of its 
prosperity, our people could never have been, and they never 
were, more averse to war with its devastations and its horrors. 

But the rattling of iron hail upon the beleagued garrison of 
Sumter, the tread of armed hosts marching to destroy the Capital 
of the Republic, the booming of the enemy's cannon in our very 
ears left us no alternative but to rally to the defense of a govern- 
ment endeared to us as the inheritance of our fathers; purchased 
by them at a sacrifice of blood and treasure we can never over- 
estimate, and which demands at our hands its preservation at every 
hazard, at any cost. 

The Concessions and Sacrifices made by the North to 
Preserve the Union. 

Year after year had we made concessions and compromises in 
the interest of slavery to appease its graspings and gratify its 
insatiable greed, and time after time had we broken them again 
at its bidding and demand. 



8 

To satisfy its remorseless claims, States and Territories have 
been surrendered to its behests, and their virgin soil polluted by 
its blasting touch. 

All the territory of the Union was offered to be thrown open 
to its invasion — the North daring to ask only and consenting to 
be content with the bare and naked privilege that freedom should 
have the same right to enter upon the race and battle for the 
supremacy. 

In defiance of our moral convictions, we returned the fugitive 
in irons to his master, and stripped the negro through the forms 
of judicial decree of all the privileges of a freeman, a man. 

We debauched our conscience, humiliated our self-respect, and 
brought disgrace upon our government by claiming for the system 
of Slavery a consideration and respectability at war with our 
whole theory of government, and which its founders would have 
blushed to own. 

Finally we elected for the slave power an administration which 
nationalized slavery, and infused its poisonous influence into every 
vein and artery of the government — which aimed at its aggran- 
dizement as its sole object and policy — which drove free state 
men from the free territory of the Union — which endeavored to 
deprive the settlers of the West of their sovereign right of self- 
government and to force upon them an odious and obnoxious 
Constitution — which filled the Cabinet and surrounded the 
Department with traitors who controlled every branch of the 
Government, and plotted treason under the very dome of the 
Capitol — who turned the arms and resources of the nation against 
itself — who plundered its property and paralyzed its power, and 
left it dismayed and confounded at their treachery and crime. 

All this and more was tamely submitted to by the Northern 
States in defiance of their moral teachings, their sense of right, 
and of the inroads it was making upon their virtues and their 
patriotism — with the only purpose and vainly cherished hope of 
averting civil war and preventing the dissolution of the Union — 
for the preservation of which no sacrifice was deemed too great — 
and yet in the face of history and of these indisputable facts we 
are given to understand that this calamitous war has been superin- 
duced in part by the aggressions of Northern States upon Southern 
rights, and by their want of loyalty and devotion to the govern- 
ment and principles of their fathers. 

For one, I protest in the name of the loyal people of the North 
against this unjust construction of their conduct and their motives. 
It is a perversion of truth and right, a falsification of the record 
and a libel upon our own good name. 



9 

The Issue Tendered by and the Ileal Designs of the 

Traitors. 

Sir, for what purpose does the Executive seek to make the issue 
of this controversy more favorable to the traitors than they claim 
it for themselves? 

The issue as they present it, speaking authoritatively and offi- 
cially, is not that the Government shall cease infringement upon 
their rights, but that the democratic form of government — the 
government of majorities which has been found antagonistic to 
their peculiar institutions — shall be destroyed and overthrown. 

It is not with them a question or struggle fur rights under the 
Constitution, orfor privileges guaranteed by that instrument. They 
will have none of these — but it is p war declared openly by them 
to be waged against the Constitution and the form of government 
it represents. 

The leading spirits whose base treason has since measurably 
pervaded the whole South, inaugurated this bloody revolution 
with the avowed intention to strike down our system of popular 
government and supplant it with one better suited to their aristo- 
cratic tastes — where their power should be absolute and not 
subject to the changes of popular elections, in which the masses 
and the " mudsills'- had the right to participate. In their very 
nature they were and now are as hostile to the principles of De- 
mocracy as the nobles of Russia or the tories of England, and 
the teachings of Washington and Jefferson with as little 
favor as the writings of Mahomet, either of whom would he hung 
in the capital of their native State should they now read the 
Declaration of Independence in the same spirit in which they 
wrote it in 177G. 

The Conspiracy to Break up the Government and Strike 
Down Constitutional Liberty. 

That a conspiracy had for years been in existence in the South- 
ern States, composed of influential and leading Southern statesmen 
and politicians, having for its object the dismemberment of the 
Union, has already passed into history, and will not be contra- 
vened by any candid, unprejudiced man. 

This Cabal, organized and headed by John C. Calhoun, who 
had sedulously indoctrinated the Southern mind with the danger- 
ous theories of State Rights and Nullification, first m< shville 
in 18501, in a Disunion Convention of the Southern States, at 
which time and place their plan of action was determined on and 
perfected, while meetings of a similar character were held almost 
simultaneously in the different cities of the South. 

Their object was avowed to be the separation of the States. 
Their purpose was settled and fixed, and they only awaited a 
favorable opportunity when they could fire the Southern heart 
2 



10 

and carry out. their design, or in their own language, "precipitate 
the cotton States into revolution." 

In this violent and revolutionary attempt to break up the Gov- 
ernment and overthrow the Constitution, they had two objects in 
view — 

One was to secure a commercial supremacy and independence 
of the Southern cities — the other and controlling one, the estab- 
lishment of ;i great slave empire, extending around the Gulf of 
Mexico, founded upon domestic slavery, as Mr. Stephens oracu- 
larly declared as its " chief foundation and support, that the stone 
the builders rejected might become the head of the corner." 

There was also another purpose not less cherished by the con- 
spirators as necessary to the accomplishment of the latter result, 
and that was the trampling down of the rights and liberties of the 
poorer classes of the South by changing the whole nature of their 
government from a democracy to an oligarchy where the whole 
power of the State should be in the hands of the slaveocrats and 
they no longer remain in terms approaching political equanty with 
the non-slaveholding whites. 

With this view, the statesmen of South Carolina have for many 
years repudiated the doctrines of Jefferson and the old states- 
men of Virginia, and effected a Government founded upon Patri- 
cian representation. 

That I may not wander from the record or ripeak unadvisedly 
upon this subject, permit me to cite some quotations from South- 
ern organs and influential and representative Southern men. 1>1L 

Mr. Spratt, of S. C, in his famous letter to Perkins, of Louisi- 
ana, shames the apologists for treason at the iNorth by the follow- 
ing truthful admission : 

" There is no man in the South who deserves the name of a 
statesman who will pretend that secession was caused by any 
aggression of the North upon the right of the South, and still less 
is it the result of any act of aggression on the part of the United 
States Government. The reason was in the difference in the 
organization of society North and South. Every man in the 
North being a freeman, the North was naturally Democratic." 

Again, in a letter from the Hon. M. R. H. Garnett, a member of 
the Virginia Convention to revise the Constitution — to Win. H. 
Trescott, of South Carolina (Buchanan's Assistant Secretary of 
State), written in 1851, in answer to a treasonable letter from 
Trescott, occurs the following significant language: 

" I must acknowledge, my dear sir, that I look to the future 
with almost as much apprehension as hope. 

'■You well object to the term Democrat. Democracy in its 
original philosophical sense is indeed incompatible with slavery 
and with the whole system of Southern society." 



11 

Hear, also, this same Mr. Trescott in his address before the South 
Carolina Historical Society, delivered some years ago : 

" The institution of slavery which with the men of former times 
was an experiment, has become the corner stone of our social and 
political life, and yet there are men in South Carolina who would 
eradicate the old State pride, destroy the conservative character 
of our State politics, and drive us destitute and dishonorable into a 
fit companionship of a vagabond and demoralized Democracy." 

De Bow's Review, which is the leading periodical and organ of 
the slaveholders, has for years teemed with attacks upon our gov- 
ernment, and articles in favor of a monarchy or aristocracy. 

In the February number, 1SG1, we find an article from George 
Fitzhugh, of Va., in which he says: 

" That it is a great mistake to suppose that abolition alone was 
the cause of dissension between the North and South — that the 
Cavaliers, Jacobites and Huguenots who settled the South, natu- 
rally hate, contemn and despise the Puritans who settled the 
North — the former are master races — the latter a slave race — the 
descendants of Saxon serfs. The former are Mediterranean races 
descendants of the Romans; for Cavaliers and Jacobites are of 
Norman descent, and the Normans were of Roman descent, and so 
were the Huguenots. The Saxons and Angles, the ancestors of 
the Yankees, came from the cold and marshy regions of the North, 
where man is little more than an amphibious biped." 

He says, further, " that the Union has served its purpose ; that 
at the North the progress and tendency of opinion was to pure 
Democracy ; that the South must so modify its institutions as 
to remove the people further from the direct exercise of power; 
that it was a characteristic of the progress of opinion in the South 
that all men see the necessity of more and stronger government; 
that the people of the South were the most aristocratic people in 
the world, and to conclude, that aristocracy is the only safeguard 
of liberty, and the only power watchful and strong enough to 
exclude monarchical despotism. ,r 

Such were the opinions and objects of the men who precipitated 
upon the country this civil war. 

It is true they had allied themselves to the Democratic party, and 
for a time adroitly employed its honored name and prostituted its 
party machinery to advance their purposes and consummate 
their schemes. But when they ascertained that the eagle eye of 
Douglas had penetrated their designs and unmasked their disloyalty 
they immediately rent in twain that organization, and elected Mr. 
Lincoln, believing that that event would furnish them their long 
wished for opportunity of fanning the flame of Southern hatred 
into the conflagration of war and revolution. 

They had outlived the patriotism and forgotten the virtues of 
their fathers, and were themselves living monuments of the legiti- 



12 

mate and debasing effects of that social system underwhich they had 
been reared and by which they had been cursed, and their history 
is sufficient evidence of the folly and absurdity of attempting to 
compromise this war by restoring to its original status and power, 
an institution in conflict with uur whole theory of government 
and tending directly to despotism and crime. 

This conflict is not an unlooked for struggle, but one which the 
great statesmen of the country have foreseen and predicted ; one 
which Webster darkly saw in his prophetic vision of the future, 
and which Andrew Jackson prophesied would occur, with the 
question of slavery as its pretext, when he had nipped in the bud 
the .Nullification of 1S32. 

The present state of affairs is but the culmination of events 
produced by causes at work in our social and political system for 
many years — the ripening of those seeds which have been planted 
in the bosom of the Republic and nurtured and fed by a foul and 
cruel wrong — the probing of that ulcer which fastened upon our 
body politic has eaten its way into the very vitals of the Republic, 
until our whole system is convulsed with the agony of disease. 

The Theory upon which our Government was Founded. 

The theory upon which our Government was organized and the 
pervading and essential spirit which animated its founders, was 
that of a free Democracy, allowing the largest liberty compatible 
with the safety of society, in which all power resided in and ema- 
nated from the people, as distinguished from that despotic system 
of " the right divine of kings to rule," which, with rare exceptions, 
had governed the world since its creation. 

The distinguishing and vitalizing principle of this form of Gov- 
ernment was to elevate the laboring classes — to give them free 
labor, free schools and a free press, and fit them for the rational 
discharge and enjoyment of their natural and inestimable rights, 
to bridge over the great gulf between the workman and the capi- 
talist, which had made the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer, and 
more nearly equalize the wealth, intelligence and happiness of the 
people. 

This idea took a firm and abiding hold upon the hearts and 
hopes of our ancestors — it became deeply inwoven into the 
thoughts and actions of their daily life — and found a lodgment 
with the stern old Puritans, which neither time nor danger nor 
death could obliterate or efface. 

It was this great ruling motive which bid them dare the anger 
and the power of the mother country, which sustained them 
throughout that long and fearful conflict, and finally gaine'd to 
them their national independence. 

It was for this they shook the thrones of the tyrants of the 
world by a declaration of human rights at once aggressive, origi- 
nal and bold. 



13 

It was; for this they formed a constitution and a government, 
not perhaps in all respects perfect, but the best and the freest 
that had ever yet been devised by man. 

Would that they could then have made it entirely free! 

Would that they then could have eradicated that oilier evil 
which from that time to the present has been our curse and national 
reproach ! 

But that the framers of our Government did not at once abolish 
slavery can never be urged as an argument for the policy of up- 
holding it now. 

The country was at that time exhausted by the efforts already 
made, and was incapable in its then distracted condition of finis 1 
ing the work so well begun. 

The Opinions of the Fathers. 

To maintain that they allowed this evil to continue for the 
reason that they believed it in harmony with our free institutions, 
or that it could be permanently incorporated into our social system 
without danger or injury, is to sully their memories and give the 
lie to the actions and professions of their whole lives. 

Can it be possible that the men who put forth that sublime 
declaration of human rights, "that all men are created equal, and 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among 
which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," can it be 
that these men had any thought or belief in common with the 
founders of the Southern Confederacy, who have attempted to 
establish it avowedly upon domestic slavery as its chief corner 
stone, and who claim, as a right divine, the privilege of buying, 
selling and trafficking in human flesh ! 

We are not left without the opinions of our fathers upon this 
question. 

Among the men of the Northern colonies there was but one 
opinion. Hancock, Adams, Livingston, Jay, Franklin and Ham- 
ilton, were all uncompromisingly hostile to the institution, while 
there was hardly a Southern statesman of that day who regarded 
domestic slavery in any other light than as a glaring and crying 
evil, to be eradicated at an early day. 

Says Jefferson : " The abolition of domestic slavery is the great 
object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily intro- 
duced in its infant state." 

" You know, my dear son, I abhor slavery," was the language 
of the patriotic Henry Laurens, of South Carolina. 

In the Constitutional Convention, Mr. Madison thought it un- 
wise and wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of property 
in man. 

Said Gov. Morris, of Penn., who was one of the framers of the 
Constitution : " I will never concur in upholding domestic slavery ; 



14 

it is a nefarious institution; it is the curse of Heaven on the 
States where it prevails." 

Said Col. Mason, of Virginia: " Slavery discourages arts and 
manufactures — the poor despise labor when performed by slaves 
— it produces the most pernicious effects on manners — evcrij 
master of slaves is a petty tyrant — they bring the judgment of Heaven 
upon a country /" 

The Social and Political Effect of Slavery. 

While these are some of the consequences entailed upon the 
country, the effect of slavery upon the masters is to dwarf their 
mental development, debase their moral natures, transforming 
them into petty despots and wholly unfitting them for the dis- 
charge of their obligations toward the citizens of a free govern- 
ment and to each other. 

Read the prophetic words of Jefferson upon this subject and 
mark their almost literal fulfillment in our day : 

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual 
exercise of the most boisterous passions — the most unremitting 
despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. 
Our children see this and learn to imitate it, for man is an imita- 
tive animal. The parent storms — the child looks on — it catches 
the lineaments of wrath — puts on the same airs in the circle of 
smaller slaves — gives a loose rein to the worst of passions — and 
thus nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny cannot but 
be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a, 
vrodigy ivho can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such 
circumstances. And with what execration should, the statesman be loaded 
who, permitting one-half (he citizens thus to trample on the rights oj 
the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies — destroys 
the morals of the one part and the amor patrice of the other.' 1 '' 

And again, in speaking of his fruitless endeavors to procure the 
abolition of slavery, he says : 

" But we must wait with patience the workings of an overrul- 
ing Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of 
these our suffering brethren. 

" When the measure of their tears shall be full — when their 
groans shall have involved Heaven itself in darkness — doubtless a 
God of Justice will awaken to their distress, and, by diffusing 
light and liberality among their oppressors, or, at length, by his 
exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to the things of 
this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of a blind 
fatality." 

The following is what General Washington said in his letter to 
General Lafayette : 

" I agree with you cordially in your ideas in regard to negro 
slavery. I have long considered it a most serious evil both 



15 

socially and politically ; and I should rejoice in any feasible 
scheme to rid our States of such a burden. 

" The Congress of I7S7 adopted an ordinance which prohibits 
the existence of involuntary servitude in our North Western terri- 
tory forever. I consider it a wise measure. 

"It meets with the approval and assent of nearly every member 
from the States more immediately interested in slave labor. 

"The prevailing opinion in Virginia is against, the spread 
of slavery in our new territories, and 1 trust, we shall have a Con- 
federation of free Slates." 

Thus it will be seen that not only has slavery reared up a gen- 
eration of men in the South, who from early habit and education, 
are hostile to the genius of our institutions, but that the necessary 
tendency of the institution is, and always will be, to unfit them 
for the performance of those reciprocal duties which devolve upon 
the citizens of a free government, and one must be blind to all the 
truths of history and the plainest principles of philosophy that 
fails to perceive it. 

The first notion that a slaveholder acquires in life, is that he is 
born 10 command. He is supercilious in his manners — violent in 
his temper — arbitrary in his tastes, and brooks neither restraint 
nor control — and being brought up. in idleness, he spurns industry 
and labor as disreputable and degrading. 

There is no middle class surrounding him. The non-slavehold- 
ers are ignorant, degraded and very poor. Common schools and 
universal education are unknown, while the exclusive system of 
agricultural labor carried on by slaves is constantly draining and 
impoverishing the State — so that in wealth, intelligence, in jiopu- 
lation, in resources and patriotism and all the manly virtues, 
tlrt-ir people fall far behind the free labor States, and are then left 
to contemplate what is most humiliating to their pride, their own 
inferiority and decline. 

On the other hand, compensated labor gives you the great 
middle class — the bulwark of the nation. It gives you free schools 
for all the people — it gives yon a varied and useful industry — it 
gives you a population at once patient, self-reliant, frugal and 
persevering, tolerant of the opinions and respectful and tender of 
the rights of their fellows. 

Abolishing everything like caste and nobility, it places all alike 
upon an equal tooting in the race of life, opening up to the 
humblest the pathway to usefulness and honor. 

Developing, as it does, agricultural wealth, encouraging manu- 
factures and commerce, the arts, science and literature, this system 
has cultivated all those habits and traits of character which have 
tended so much to make our nation great and make our people 
happy — placing us far in the van of human progress — command- 



16 

ing surprise at our own achievements and extorting the praise and 
admiration of foreign nations. 

I have been more particular in reviewing at length the philo- 
sophy and hidden causes of the conflict now distracting the 
country because these considerations must, in the future, measu- 
rably control our action in dealing with it. 

And if the conclusions to which I have arrived be correct, it 
shows the sheer and utter absurdity of ever again attempting to 
compromise with slavery by making to it new concessions and 
guaranties. 

The Alternatives Presented. 

This rebellion is but the culmination of a revolution which has 
been going on for years, and will no more go backward than the 
mid-day sun, and the individual who honestly expects to again 
see " the Union as it was, with slavery restored and in the ascend- 
ant, is a madman or a dreamer." It is the exterminating ''thunder 
of the Eternal" that has brought it to its present condition, and 
nothing less than the miraculous interposition of his power will 
ever reinstate it. 

There is but one of two alternatives now presented to our peo- 
ple — either the States inarmed rebellion must be subdued and 
brought back to their allegiance by the military power of the gov- 
ernment without conditions or concessions, and with the institution 
of slavery in just the broken and crippled condition that the war 
shall leave it, or else you must consent to the independence of 
the revolted States and the dismemberment of the nation — and 
the sooner the Governor and his followers make up their minds 
and announce their decisions upon this question the better for the 
3ountry and all concerned. 

He who at this sta^e of the rebellion clamors for a settlement 
and compromise upon other terms is, in effect, preaching disunion 
and aiding the traitors, whatever may be his motive or intentions. 

What is the compromise which they expect to make with the 
rebellion which is to woo back the traitors and reunite the States ? 

What is the plan of action ; what the terms of peace which 
they mysteriously offer and ask the people of the country to adopt? 

We submit that they shall show their hand. They shall not 
dissemble nor play the coward, nor ask us to desert the adminis- 
tration and follow their fruitless chase after an imaginary peace 
which is to result from a wasteful truce or a disgraceful compro- 
mise. 

If they wish a separation of the States let them say so — or if 
they wish to adopt the plan proposed by Sanders in his letter to 
His Excellency of repudiating our National debt and paying that 
of the traitors, let them say that. As a sample of the manner in 
which their efforts in behalf of treason are appreciated by " their 



17 

Southern brethren," I will read an extract from the Richmond 
Dispatch upon their efforts at compromise, which I think ought 
to satisfy them of the intentions of the traitors, and of their regard 
for their conservative and compromising brethren of the North. 

It discusses the peace propositions of Mr. James Brooks in its 
issue of January 10th, in which it says : 

" Mr. Brooks appears to be in earnest in these extravagant pro- 
positions, strange as it may appear to any man who has possession 
of his senses ; for upon the occasion of presenting them, he made 
a long speech, and expressed himself confident of their success. 
Are the Northern people all natural-born fools, or are they only 
stricken with that judicial madness which we are told the gods 
always inflict upon the victims of their wrath preparatory to their 
ruin t Can they suppose that the South is as galless and as lily- 
livered as themselves, and that they are willing, for mere conside- 
rations of interest, to forget the unheard of outrages under which 
they have suffered during this war ? Can they believe them ca- 
pable of so soon burying in oblivion all that they have done and 
all that they have suffered ? * * * * 

If the whole Yankee race should fall down in the dust to-morrow and 
pray us to be their masters, we would spurn them even as slaves. Our 
only wish is to be separated from them finally and forever — never 
to see the face of one of them again — never to hear the voice of 
another Yankee on the south side of the Potomac or the north — 
to have no traffic and no intercourse of any description whatever 
with them. We are fighting for separation, and we will have it, if it 
cost the life of every man in the Confederate States. 

We are aware that many persons believe that the party of which 
Brooks and V T an Buren are representatives, desire and design to 
restore peace, and that at present they dare not speak out their 
real sentiments, which are in favor of separation. We do not 
believe they are any such thing. They would like peace on condition 
of our return to the Union, and they are fools to believe that a majority 
of the people in the Confederacy are in favor of reunion. They would 
like peace on these terms, because it would restore the commer- 
cial supremacy of the North, and especially of the City of New 
York, which is gone forever if the Union be not restored. But 
they are as bitterly opposed to separation as Lincoln himself, or 
any of the thieves and murderers who lead his armies. In the 
event of a refusal to return to the Union, they would, to a man, 
unite in houndling on the assassins who are desolating our country 
and murdering our people as fiercely as they have ever been 
hounded on by Beecher and Hale. They look only to their pockets 
when they preach of reconciliation and restoration. If the same object 
could be effected by entirely destroying the people of the South- 
ern States, and they thought it as easy to do, they would recom- 
mend it as the best of all possible policy. Let them be satisfied, 
3 



18 

however. President Davis expressed the sentiment nf the entire Con- 
federacy, in his speech the other night, when he said the people would 
sooner unite with a nation of hyenas than with the detestable a n<l detested 
Yankee nation: Anything hut that. English colonization, French 
vassalage, Russian serfdom, all, all are priferable to any association 
with the Yankees." 

The Errors of the Governor. 

But if the Governor has wandered from the record in dealing 
with the nature and causes of this civil war, he has still more 
grievously erred in dealing with its practical realities, and in the 
measure of his support which he tenders to the administration, 
upon which now hangs such terrible responsibilities. 

The Governor has been elevated to power by a confiding peo- 
ple at this most critical period in the nation's history, pregnant 
with vast and momentous consequences to the cause of republican 
government throughout the world. 

We see now after a conflict of centuries the spirit of aristocracy 
and the spirit of democracy engaged in mortal contest locked in a 
death struggle for the mastery, and the whole world watching 
with anxious gaze the issue of the conflict. 

On the one side is. arrayed the blighted and blasting form of 
human slavery, supported and upheld by every tyrant, aristocrat, 
and oppressor of our race. On the other, the genius of civil liberty, 
the Constitution and the Union, encouraged by the champions of 
freedom everywhere, and cheered and beckoned on by the millions 
of toiling humanity all over the globe. 

Had the Executive struck boldly for the right — had he planted 
himself firmly with his New England brothers upon the platform 
of justice and truth ; had he held up the hands of the President; 
pardoned his mistakes and encouraged him in his fearful trial (as I 
hope he may yet do) he would have dealt a blow at the rebellion 
more effectual and deadly than the bayonets of 100,000 men, and 
would have won the unreserved praise and gratitude of the Ameri- 
can people. 

But he allowed the golden opportunity to pass by unimproved ; 
he succumbed to the prejudices and yielded what I believe to have 
been his better judgment to the demands of partisan counselors, 
and communicates to this body declarations and sentiments that 
are proclaimed in triumph through the streets of Richmond, and 
read with pain and mortification in our own Capital. 

The West and New England. 

That selfish and disloyal men should have held out induce- 
ments to the Great West to repudiate the national debt, or that 
they should have sought to offer up New England as a sacrifice 
to appease the slave owners of the South, was what every loyal 



19 

man had reason to expect. But that the Message of the Execu- 
tive of the State of New York should appear even by inference 
to countenance this wicked suggestion conceived and proclaimed 
by Southern traitors and Generals, may well excite fear and appre- 
hension. 

The Great Western are but the children of the Eastern States, 
bound to them by bands of iron and by every consideration of 
interest and duty. 

Unwavering in their loyalty ; unfaltering in their trust in the 
great cause of free government, and fully determined that this 
contest shall be so terminated that a slaveholder's rebellion never 
again shall curse our shores — there they stand side by side with 
their New England brothers. Shoulder to shoulder they march 
to the conflict with them, emulating their patriotism, rivaling 
their bravery and patiently enduring all the hardships, privations 
and sacrifices which the cause of our common country demands. 

And what of New England, now held up to opprobrium and 
dishonor as equally guilty with the South in this crime against the 
Government t 

That land where constitutional liberty first found its home and 
fastened its deepest and firmest hold ! 

" The land where our fathers died ; 
The land of the pilgrim's pride." 

The land of virtue, of patriotism, of science and religion. The 
land of churches and school houses, of industry and happy homes ; 
where the desert has been made a fruitful field, and the rugged 
mountain taught to bend to the industry of man — whose hardy and 
thrifty sons have leveled the forests and redeemed the deserts of 
half a continent; whose schoolmasters and orators, statesmen and 
divines have carried from ocean to ocean, and from pole to pole, 
her love of learning and virtue, and her reverence for the laws. 

Who is there around this circle that has not witnessed at his 
own home the evidence of New England civilization stamped 
indelibly upon the character of our own noble State, and yet we 
are told that all this must be sacrificed to appease this bloody 
Moloch of the South. 

The President's Proclamation. 

We next come to consider, as the most important practical 
question with which the we have to do, the proclamation of tht 
President for emancipating the slaves. 

While we reflect upon the erroneous and superficial view which 
the Governor has been led to take of the motive and scope of the 
rebellion, we cannot be surprised that he should oppose this exer- 
cise of the war power by the Executive. 

" Slavery," says he, " is but the subject ; not the cause of the 
controversy." 



20 

He argues, it is true, that it thrust itself into the very focus of 
the rebellion. One side is battling to build it up, and the other to 
break it down ; but, after all, slavery did not set them by the ears 
— they wentto fighting because they were excited and they were 
excited because of the bad blood that had found its way in the 
extreme States, very much, as an apt writer has recently remarked 
about the struggle of two dogs over a bone — the bone is the sub- 
ject of the fight, but the cause lies " in the bad passions of the dogs." 

.Slavery has not only been the original, inciting cause of the 
rebellion, but thus far has been one of its principal bulwarks and 
supports, without the aid of which it would have been now num- 
bered among the things that were — would have been literally 
starved into submission. 

The negro has raised their food, carried on their industrial pur- 
suits, performed their labor, built their forts, dug their trenches, 
and enabled almost their whole population to take the field 
against us. 

The Original War Policy. 

Our Government, out of deference to the supposed public 
opinion of a minority at the North, which had been corrupted by 
long contact and intercourse with slavery, or else misapprehending 
the real design and determination of the traitors, and hoping they 
would yet return to their allegiance, long hesitated to strike at 
the heart of the disease. 

The President and his advisers, rejecting the advice of the bold 
and earnest men who saw and comprehended the full measure of 
tb« iniquity of the traitors, adopted the counsels of the Border 
State conservatives, and carried on, for long and bloody months, a 
tedious, exhausting, and almost fruitless war. Conservative Gen- 
erals were placed in command of the army ; a conservative and 
conciliatory policy was adopted; the "constitutional rights" of 
traitors were sedulously protected ; the slaves were kept without 
our lines ; and the most scrupulous regard had for the conservative 
sentiment of the North. 

What, I ask, was the result of this ill-timed and hesitating pol- 
icy ? Disastrous in the extreme ! It is true that we had won 
victories and possessed ourselves of portions of rebel territory, but 
the strongholds of the rebellion had not been shaken, nor did the 
faintest indication of returning allegiance on the part of rebels 
appear — on the contrary, they daily became more brutal, more 
defiant and more unyielding in their purposes. All this time their 
sympathizers at the North became more bold, more out-spoken 
and disloyal to the government. 

The reluctance of the President to adopt a policy that seemed 
to look like trenching upon this favored and worshiped system 
of domestic slavery restrained his hand, and it was not until after 
the rebellion was enabled to mass almost its whole white popula- 



21 

tion in the field, and thereby outnumber and defeat our armies, 
and even invade the soil of the Free States, that the bolt was 
launched and he determined to try " what virtue there was in 
stones." 

The objections made to the exercise of this power on the part 
of the President are of the most trivial and unsatisfactory charac- 
ter. The right of the President to make this Proclamation as a 
war measure, can hardly be questioned. 

The argument that the Constitution stands in the way has been 
nearly abandoned. The traitors themselves have made their 
Northern sympathizers ashamed of that pretext. They throw 
back in their very faces the hypocrisy that concedes to them im- 
munities they are not cowardly enough to ask for themselves — 
the protection of a constitution which they spit upon and defy. 

The Inconsistencies of the Opponents of the Proclamation. 

It is a strange anomaly in the history of this rebellion that con- 
cedes the right of the Government to batter down the forts — 
bombard the cities — lay waste the country — shoot, stab and 
mangle the inhabitants — confine in prison the subjects — burn, 
confiscate and destroy every species of property, (one only ex- 
cepted), and yet deny the authority to touch that human pro- 
perty — the most useful to them, and therefore most damaging to 
us ! And claim the right to hold a human being in slavery more 
sacred than any other right to life or property ! ! But as I have 
before intimated the rebels do not put their objections to the Pro- 
clamation upon that ground. They allege that it is brutal and 
not sanctioned by the laws of war. Let us examine this position 
for a moment. 

Slavery is a great source of strength to the rebels in a military 
point of view. We can overthrow that power by setting the 
slave free and taking him into our service instead of theirs. Why 
may not w r e do so ? If the negro be property why may we not 
take him as well as a rebel's horse ? If the negro be an ally simply, 
then by all rules of international law we may persuade or seduce 
that ally from the service of our enemy by offering him superior 
inducements in our own. 

Carry out this policy rigorously and effectually, and in a single 
half year you take from the rebellion, a power and add it to our 
side — equal to half a million of armed men. 

Must we continue to send down the flower of cur youth and 
the best blood of the land to confront the batteries of the traitors 
and dare i he dangers of battle and disease, out of deference to a 
sentiment or prejudice which has no foundation in reason, and is 
only pandered to by selfish and designing men who, disregarding 
the nation's good, seek party aggrandizement upon its overthrow 
and ruin? — or are we blindly and madly to leave this mighty 
power unemployed, out. of fpnr that the slave may seek his free- 



22 

dom, and that insurrection and bloodshed may follow the attempt ? 
I trust that no such folly will mark our conduct or brand us 
with the infamy that must follow such weakness and imbecility. 

The Scare of Insurrection. 

The scare of insurrection is simply used to serve a purpose 
among cowardly or disloyal men at the North, who affect to trem- 
ble at its terrors. There can be no danger of such results unless 
the traitors bring it upon themselves. 

Slaves never rise against their masters because they gain their 
freedom : it is only when the attempt is made to re-enslave them that 
insurrection need be apprehended. The bloody scenes of St. 
Domingo were not a result of giving freedom to slaves; but first 
originated in the attempt to take from the free blacks the rights 
of citizenship, and culminated in the bloody tragedies of Dessa- 
lines, when Napoleon again attempted to re-enslave them, years 
after emancipation had set them free. 

But suppose that these fears are well founded and insurrections 
should occur, the answer is obvious and plain. Let the rebels take 
from th ir armies the masters of the slaves who are now culling the 
throats of our sons and brothers, mid hid th m take their muskets and 
defend, their own firesides against the new-made enemy at home. This 
would protect their properly and secure the safety of their fami- 
lies, and at the same time give preponderance to our arms in the fit Id, 

And this is precisely what the traitors foresee. This " (ire in 
the rear" will deplete their armies in our front and render it 
impossible to recruit their thinned ranks. Ours, on the contrary, 
will retain their full strength and become more formidable as this 
preponderance in our favor increases. 

Arming the Blacks. 

If the President will immediately raise, equip and drill every 
able-bodied black man whose services can be obtained, officer 
them with white soldiers and put the direct management of the 
war in the hands of men who, like Butler, are equal to the occa- 
sion and thoroughly determined that this treason shall be put 
down at any hazard, Jeff*. Davis will be a fugitive or a prisoner 
before the expiration of the present year. 

Black soldiers fought and won under Washington, and distin- 
guished themselves under Jackson, and it is difficult to see why 
they will not fight as well for their own freedom as for that of 
their masters. 

I know there has been a prejudice on the part of a portion of 
our people against organizing and aiming the blacks, and so long 
as our brave friends and neighbors volunteered and filled the 
ranks of the army, it was not urged nor attempted to any great 
extent ; but the time will soon come when we shall need more 
men, and we shall have to meet the question in a practical way, 



23 

and we ask, are the men who now so loudly clamor against the 
arming of the blacks, willing to take their muskets and themselves 
go into the ranks? I venture the assertion that one-halt of' them 
would resist a conscript ton by force if '. attempted to-morrow ; and yet in 
the face of these facts they would repel the willing aid which is 
now ready for the country. 

Our bravest and most deserving men are alreadyin the field, and, 
of those who remain at home, too many are like " the dog in the 
manger," they will not go themselves to the service of their coun- 
try, nor permit the Government to use the services of others. 

The Proclamation and the Future. 

I have thus far considered the proclamation solely in a military 
point of view, and with regard to its efficacy asa measure of mili- 
tary policy, but there are other results and advantages which 
must come from its practical and effective enforcement, that are 
most cheering and encouraging to every loyal and patriotic heart. 

We commenced the struggle for our national independence 
with two enemies to free government, having fast hold on our 
nation's life; one the Tory Aristocracy of the mother country, the 
other, domestic slavery in our own. By the valor and patriotism 
of our heroic ancestors, we vanquished the one ; by the madness of 
the rebellion we may now, through the Providence of God, rid 
ourselves of the other. 

What the Declaration of Independence was to the war of the 
Revolution, is the Proclamation of Freedom to the Rebellion of 
to-day. Before the Declaration of Independence, the war on the 
part of the Colonists- was simply a war of sell-defense, forced upon 
them by a grasping tyranny which sought to wrest away their 
chartered rights. They fought at Concord, at Lexington and 
Bunker Hill with Spartan bravery, but as British subjects, for 
rights secured under the English Constitution. The first bold 
blow for freedom was the Declaration of Independence. Then, 
as now, the cowards quailed — the disloyal threatened, the 
timid doubted, and the hesitating feared* and only the few bold, 
fearless men, who trusted in the right and realized their destiny, 
broke to fche world a battle-cry that awoke the spirit and roused 
the energies of freedom throughout the land, and startled every 
tyrant with a danger that shook the very strongholds of his power. 

It gave a new hope and life to the patriots and opened up to 
their vision a reward more dazzling and brilliant than their imagi- 
nations had ever before conceived. 

So is it now with us. The madness of the rebellion has driven 
its authors on to crime, and Slavery has note become the victim <>J their 
wicked n< ss. 

A destiny and a future more brilliant and inspiring than ever 
before held out to mortal man awaits the issue of this struggle, if 



24 

we are only true to ourselves and the great cause committed to 
our keeping. 

This night of darkness and of trial will yet give place to the 
morning sun of victory, and one wild shout of triumph go forth 
from every freeman, and find an echo from the oppressed of every 
land. Our fair-haired boys will not have died in vain, and the 
hundred thousand heroes who have found their bloody graves will 
be the martyrs to a more glorious and wide spread liberty. 

The holy name of freedom will no longer be a mockery and a 
cheat to any of our fellows, and this bloody era will have become 
a glorious epoch in the world's history, from which great systems 
of government and morals shall date their rise, and from which 
nations may draw anew their inspiration and their life. 

I know, Mr. President, the dangers and embarrassments that 
surround us now. I know the coward cravens who seek a hollow 
truce which can but be the prelude to unending war. I see the 
disloyal plotitngs that even now essay to lick the hand that spurns 
them, and would barter their nation's honor for eternal shame. I 
am aware that indecision, disaster and defeat have alarmed the 
timid and served to dampen the ardor of the patriotic aud the 
brave ; but, sir, I have faith in God and in the great cause of 
human right, and will not allow myself to doubt the issue of this 
conflict. 

" Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes with pain, 
And dies amid her worshipers." 

The war may yet go on — the death of the first-born may clothe 
our homes in mourning: — wasted commerce, disordered finances 
and blighted industry may mark its pathway ; but the great heart 
of this nation shall not bow itself in shame. 

The broken columns of the Republic will be replaced by a 
purer and a nobler structure. The mourner's sorrow shall yet 
give place to gladness. The desolated field shall yet grow green 
again ; and a newer and holier civilization shall carry our flag and 
our freedom from ocean to ocean, and from the lakes to the gulf, 
until this people shall give law and freedom to all the continent, 
and " dictate terms, if need be, to the world in arms." 



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